Note: This is post #17 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. How does the price of oil affect the price of candy bars? When the price of oil increases, it is of course more expensive to transport goods, like candy bars. But there are other, more subtle ways these two markets are connected says economist Alex Tabarrok. (If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5 to 2 times the speed....

On December 1st, Acton ed Cato Institute Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Ilya Shapiro to the Mark Murray Auditorium to speak on the role of the federal judiciary in the growth of government. The lecture, delivered as part of the 2015 Acton Lecture Series, emphasized the importance of judges’ both having the right constitutional theories as well as the willingness to enforce them. Shapiro argues that too much judicial “restraint” — like that of Chief Justice John Roberts in the...

“It is the evacuation of depth, stability, and substance of culture where we witness the death of character.” –James Davison Hunter Christians and conservatives have long despaired over the “loss of American values,” decrying the erosion of public virtue and the disintegration of morals. As researchers likeCharles Murray and Robert Putnam have duly confirmed, the fabric munity life and civil society is continuing to fray across America. In Yuval Levin’s latest book, The Fractured Republic, he finds the solution in...

Tomorrow is Inauguration Day, a day of ceremonies to mark the peaceful transition of federal executive power within the United States government. Here are five facts should know about the most important date (after Election Day) on the political calendar: 1. Inauguration Day used to be held on March 4. That was the original date (March 4, 1789) when the Confederation Congress, which operated under the Articles of Confederation, handed off power to the new constitutional government. When the new...

Today is the 311thbirthday of the Founding Father and polymath, Ben Franklin. As a leading statesman and scientist of his day, Franklin made innumerable contributions—many of which made him a wealthy man. At his death, Franklin is estimated to have been worth about $67 million. Here are six quotes by Franklin on money, wealth, and virtue: On increasing wealth: The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words—industry and frugality. On...

“A former Communist who found spiritual solace in his adopted Quakerism,” says Bruce Edward Walker in this week’s Acton Commentary, “Chambers reduced the dilemma facing modern humanity to a simple dichotomy: God or Man?” Consider: An avowed socialist candidate came close to clinching the presidential nomination in what was once considered the world’s greatest proponent of liberty; the same country is hobbled by an ever-encroaching, state-enforced regulatory apparatus; municipal bankruptcies and state budget crises proliferate, wrought in part by massively...

Note: This is the first in a weekly series of explanatory posts on the officials and agencies included in the President’s Cabinet. When Obamacare was signed into law in 2010, the Catholic nuns didn’t expect it would affect their religious liberty. Nor did they suspect that in a few years the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would restrict their freedom of conscience. Yet it was that Cabinet-level government agency that issued a mandate requiring the women to disregard...

Due to a rapidly changing economy and a range of excessive regulations from the federal government, the American coal mining industry is facing serious challenges. For states like West Virginia, the effects are particularly painful, as mining towns munities struggle under a projected 23% decline in related jobs in recent years, leading vast numbers of residents to leave the state altogether. Yet for Travis Lowe, pastor of Crossroads Church in Bluefield, West Virginia, the severe economic losses and doom-and-gloom forecasts...

Image courtesy of Getty Images “Why can’t sane energy policies be developed and effectively implemented without a $30 billion bureaucracy to oversee it?” asks Acton Institute president and co-founder Rev. Robert Sirico in a recent article for The Hill. Sirico notes that under President-elect Donald Trump some overreaching government bureaucracies could be rolled back or even abolished. Most significantly, Sirico calls for an end of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives: This well-intentioned subsidy obfuscates the nature of religious charities by...

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini In a recent speech delivered to a gathering of the Roman round table ofThe Global Foundationat the Vatican, Pope Francis addressed economics. Specifically, he suggested that a capitalist ideology which is unconcerned about the marginalized has run rampant across the world. Acton Institute’s director of research, Samuel Gregg, suggests that the evidence does not support this argument. Gregg explains this in his latest for the Stream: “Pope Francis and the Myth of Radical Capitalism.” Gregg lays out...